AFP/Tokyo
Japan’s sports minister said Friday he had tendered his resignation over abandoned plans for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics main stadium after the venue’s $2.0 billion price tag sparked a public backlash.
But Hakubun Shimomura added that he would stay in the job until a cabinet reshuffle expected next month—a request from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The stadium fiasco has pushed back a new venue’s completion date, embarrassing Japanese sport officials who have also been forced to find an alternate showpiece site for Rugby World Cup matches in 2019. Japan is hosting the event.
“I offered my resignation to the prime minister over the phone last night,” Shimomura told a news conference Friday.
“I caused trouble and made the public worry.”
He will also return six months’ worth of ministerial salary, worth a total of 900,000 yen ($7,500). Shimomura’s parliamentary salary of 1,315,000 yen per month will be unaffected, however.
His departure comes after a third-party panel released a report on Thursday that said the minister was responsible for the stadium fiasco.
Abe shocked Olympic organisers in July when he pulled the plug on Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid’s winning design as soaring costs put it on course to become the world’s most expensive sports stadium.
The futuristic design had also been criticised by some architects who said it would be an eyesore.
Japan slashed the cost of the new Olympic stadium by more than 40 percent, setting a 155 billion yen cap on construction costs, well below the 265 billion yen estimated under the now-ditched design.
Following Tokyo’s decision to scrap the design plans, Kimito Kubo, a Japanese official heading the stadium construction, stepped down, saying it was for “personal reasons”.
But the resignation was widely seen as him taking the blame for the embarrassing row.
Tight timeline
Local media reported last week that renowned Japanese architects Kengo Kuma and Toyo Ito will take part in a new design competition.
Hadid’s firm has said it will not be bidding as it could not find a contractor.
Japan last month promised a new list of venues for the 2019 World Cup after rugby’s governing body demanded fresh plans in the wake of the proposed national stadium being scrapped.
World Rugby issued a strongly-worded statement saying it was giving the Japanese hosts until the end of September to come up with a “revised detailed host venue proposal” as organisers scramble to find a replacement.
The governing body has also requested a fresh tournament budget that supplies “appropriate financial security”.
Japan does have other stadiums that could host the event—including one in Yokohama just south of Tokyo which staged the 2002 football World Cup final.
But there could be repercussions over reduced ticket revenues because any replacement venue would have fewer seats than the originally planned stadium.
The International Olympic Committee has also demanded that Japan complete its new national stadium by January 2020, three months earlier than planned. Tokyo is due to host the opening ceremony on July 24 that year.
Hakubun Shimomura
